A $200 million settlement fund for the victims of 2008’s Metrolink collision was approved last month – releasing Metrolink and Veolia Transportation from further liability for the crash. Executives from Veolia Transportation (the company who supplied the engineers for Metrolink) have agreed to meet with victims and families of victims behind closed doors. The victims lawyers hope this will give executives a sense of the human suffering caused by the tragedy and perhaps convince Veolia to provide more money to the victims if costs go beyond the $200 million mark.

Streetsblog’s Dana Gabbard reviews last week’s public meetings on bus service changes coming in June. His thoughts overall? “We are living in the world of The Jetsons not The Flintstones and stone age level outreach is unacceptable.” At the February 1st meeting the crowd of 150 was mostly comprised of Bus Rider’s Union members flatly opposed to all service changes and a group from East L.A. opposed to changes to line 30/31.

Straight Outta Suburbia blog offers an interesting take on the role of vehicles in city’s from an urbanist’s point of view. Rather than vilify the car, as is so often the case in urbanist discussions, Straight Outta Suburbia proposes a hierarchy of efficient and appropriate uses for cars in cities.